Burning Incense
by The Sky Is Not Always Red
Summary: REWRITE. Through a thick sheet of falling water, she saw the shadowy figure approaching, appearing as if levitating. It paused. Then she recognized the low, droning voice as it called, "Are you coming or not?" SASUxOC! Summary inside.
1. Chapter 1

FULL SUMMARY : The Nakanishi Clan, a prosperous clan with a history of talented women who entertain wealthy visitors from across the world, has a new rising star, the daughter of the leader. Her name is Yasuko and she is promised the teahouse and a future as her birthright. When she is out one afternoon and meets Uzukmaki Naruto who she immediately falls for, she starts to experience many encounters with who _should _be her fiance, Uchiha Sasuke.  
>Sasuke is merely an avenger who is curious about (and nearly smitten) with the girl with the golden voice that he heard one night beneath her window. With a little bit of blackmail, she could be his.<br>She has lived a stressful life from day one and years later, when enough is enough, she runs away and discovers herself becoming somebody different - somebody deadly. Yet she still wonders if she will ever meet the love of her young life again.

A/N: THIS IS A REWRITE. EXACTLY the same as the first one, just it was first person before. Now it's third person...

PS. Perspectives will alternate between Yasuko and Sasuke, I believe...

**PART 1**

_~Chapter 1 - He Walked Past the Window~_

_Kimonos were restricting. So restricting that even though she was running, she wasn't breathing nearly as hard as she wanted to and wasn't going one-tenth as far as she wanted to. When you're taking such small steps, you couldn't possibly escape from the vast Ayazawa estate. Aside from this, the ground was freezing and layered with flaky puffs of snow which almost made it impossible to trudge through. It made Yasuko want to give up running and give in to the temptation to collapse on the floor._

_Training was training and several times had people warned her about the difficulties she had to overcome. Still, it was all too hard. There was too much pressure bearing down on a girl who was at such a tender young age of 5. A 5-year old should never feel how she felt, she thought with tears springing to her eyes._

_She stopped running when she approached an icy wooden bench that overlooked a small frozen pond. In the summer, the pond was still a quaint little thing with lush green reeds surrounding it and lily pads gliding over the glittering water. But in this bitter winter it was just a barren patch of ice._

_Yasuko sat on the bench for a long while kicking her feet which didn't exactly touch the floor._

_"Yasuko-chan?"_

_"Mother..."_

_The benevolent woman was so graceful that it seemed as though she didn't walk - but flow across the snow sprinkled ground. She sat beside her daughter. "Are you tired?"_

_Tired was an understatement. Her head was aching, she was hungry and dizzy and her blistered feet were soaking wet and had lost all feeling. "Yes."_

_"That only means you aren't understanding our teachings," she chuckled. "The gist of elegance is not about putting painstaking effort into being graceful. Grace is natural. It's as natural as a subtle, close-mouthed smile. When you've truly mastered this art, you will be graceful even as you sleep."_

_Poise. Elegance. Refinity._

_All were the price to pay in the making of a perfect woman._

* * *

><p>"More tea, sir?"<p>

"This will suit me just fine."

She smiled and bowed, taking the pot of steaming tea back into the kitchen. Once finally out of view of the clients, she sighed and relaxed myself onto a wooden chair that was leaning against the wall. She could just barely see from a certain angle, the man that she had just serviced. A ninja, obviously. His face was deformed with a prominent scar; a harsh battle wound running down the side of his face. The man was merely passively sipping at his piping hot tea cup. Even so, she couldn't help but feel immensely threatened.

In fact, just his presence in the teahouse was unnerving to her.

Perhaps it was just that she didn't like the look in his eyes.

Although, she didn't trust the look of _any _ninja really. Yasuko had quite a bit of respect and admiration for all of her relatives and other ninja in the village, however, when she stared at them for far too long, she would start to overthink things and let her imagination run wild. They came into the teahouse and she was obligated serve them humbly, but had they just come back from a mission? Who had they killed? Who had deserved it?

When they stared her dead in they eye, it was almost as if she could see the lives that they had taken. And then she began to imagine a glint of murderous intent. Horrible, gut-wrenching thoughts would go rolling through her mind. Then the fear would kick in. That crippling fear that made her knees, the weakest part of her body, buckle and thus a gigantic hole is punched through her perfect pretense of politeness.

The whole profession was barbaric, wasn't it? Killing and killing and barely surviving. Being a human weapon. In Yasuko's opinion, there was no such thing as a 'villainous ninja'. They were all the same. The ones considered 'villains' are the ones who aren't on your side. Or, perhaps an even more frightening thought, the ones driven insane by the killing who discovered some sick pleasure in suffering.

Nevertheless, murderers were murderers.

She felt lucky to not be subjected to that primitive life.

However, she would never dare show my contempt for ninja. They were responsible for her being alive, for the safety of the village and they were about 50 percent of her own clan.

"Yasuko," somebody beckoned just before entering the kitchen. "Yasuko, why are you resting right now?"

It was Yasuko's mother, Chou, who appeared a trifle miffed. Yasuko dearly admired her mother for her incomparable grace. With long straight brown hair, tightly in a bun all the time with her trademark butterfly broach. Although her face was worn and tired from many years of experience, a smile was always on her face and mirth always in her eyes. "Mother, I'm only relaxing for a little bit. Nobody needs serving right now."

She tisked. "Yasuko, you're never finished _serving_. It's only a little past lunchtime. Don't you think those people out there would like to hear your music?"

"I thought I was playing later tonight?"

"Tonight," her mother leaned forward and pressed her lips against her forehead. "you'll be dancing. We're having a special guest. Hokage-sama wanted to pay us a visit. Your father was telling her what a fine young lady you're becoming."

'Hokage-sama? Lady Tsunade?' If there was anybody that Yasuko absolutely adored as much as her mother, it was Tsunade-sama. It was a foreign concept to her, for a female to be in such a high place of power. For this, Yasuko envisioned her to be kind and firm and wonderful. A smile touched her lips, just barely, not accurately reflecting the flurry of emotions that stirred within her. To break her facade now, in front of her mother, would be pointless to say the least.

"Thank you very much."

"Don't thank me. It's about you, honey. It's about you doing your job."

'My job?' She nodded absentmindedly and began to ponder that phrase, slipping into a mild trance while staring into a jagged crack in the wall.

When she noticed that she had slacked off again, Yasuko's mother ordered for her to return to the guests with a violin in her hand. Yasuko was to obey, but had to mentally admit the truth—she was exhausted. The past few nights have become increasingly difficult for her to sleep. It could be related to the fact that a bird had made it's nest in the crook of two branches on the tree just outside her window, although, she'd never minded the twittering of birds before. Granted, this bird _did _tweet night and day.

Also, her had bed felt strangely lumpy and impossible to lie in lately. She thought, perhaps, she was just being over-imaginative again. 'Maybe I'm just restless.' About a week ago, when she had a day off from her practice, she was allowed into the village to the marketplace. It seemed that enough customers had requested her that she had accumulated enough personal tips to buy myself things that shecould enjoy for myself.

Going into the village wasn't a common occurrence. And something happened that was even _more _delightfully out of the ordinary...

"No time for that now, Yasuko!" She begrudgingly lifted herself from her seat.

After retrieving the violin that rested in the corner of the kitchen, she returned to the customers who were kneeling cozy in the teahouse. She cast her glance over each individual face. 'The usual,' she regarded.

The customer population normally ranged from business and political men to wealthy housewives, lords and ladies to high-ranked ninja seeking refuge from long, strenuous missions. It was extremely uncommon for any young people to drift in.

They seemed very eager when they saw her. She heard a few men in the back quietly conversing. One of them murmured this sentence, "Impressive for a girl of 12." That was all she needed to hear.

She began to play, keeping a steady hand on her bow as it rubbed along the threads of the violin, filling the room with gentle music. The song she was playing reminded her of spring; it was jovial and tranquil at the same time. Spring was just a sweet thought at this time. It was autumn. Soggy autumn.

When Yasuko finished, she bowed while people applauded lightly. When she raised her head, she saw something that caught her attention. Somebody was passing by the window, lingering longer than he should have. Then she noticed that he began to clap calmly. Then they met eyes.

Yasuko had trained for many years in the art of maintaining emotions. Or rather boxing them up and storing them away so that they're undetectable.

Maybe that was why it was so frustrating. She could distinguish nothing — not even a gleam of emotion when he stared back at her. He was effortless. _She_was vulnerable. She felt exposed because she knew that her true emotions were being displayed through her eyes, breaking her long-standing record of impeccable self-control.

And he could see it.

It was so easy for him to not show emotion that she had to simply assume that he had none.

Then, the boy walked past the window. It was almost as if out of existence; nobody noticed him, everyone seemed to look through him and even in her mind, the vision of his desolate eyes was becoming something of a vague memory. Although it really didn't feel like a memory at all. More like a dream. Yasuko could only pray it was a dream. That boy made her shudder.

"Honey, you don't seem well," Chou finally said after she staggered off into the kitchen following the performance. "You should really go up to your room and rest."

"Mother, I'm okay. I'm just a little tired."

She didn't seem to believe her and suggested that she lie down until dinner. "You don't want anything to happen during your performance tonight," she said.

Without protesting further, Yasuko retired to her room. In truth, she was thankful for being allowed time to rest. Her joints were aching and her eyelids were drooping and threatening to shut. Still, sleep wouldn't be as satisfying as she wanted as of that moment; she was thinking too much.

Instead, Yasuko sat at her vanity to examine her reflection. She lifted her jewel-encrusted hairbrush and began to sweep it through her locks of bronze hair in ringlets, cascading down the front of her chest. Her bangs were pulled back and clipped by a glass accessory, a white azalea. It was her trademark; her identification of being in the main branch just as was my mother's butterfly broach.

She stared myself in the eye for a long while. Nobody could tell just how beat down she was. Or just how happy she was. They were simple, shallow gray orbs. Excellent.

While humming a lovely song and choosing which jewelry to don for her audience with the Hokage, she began to fantasize. Fantasize about the week before. Her visit in the market.

Meeting Pure Blue.

* * *

><p><em>"Honey, be careful. Don't talk to any strangers, but always be polite," her mother gently caressed the top of her head. "Remember that just because you're not in the teahouse, it doesn't mean that you forget the teachings. Small steps, chin up and bow graciously if you're ever to cross paths with somebody important."<em>

_"Yes of course," Yasuko deadpanned. Chou didn't appreciate the slip of attitude but before she could be scolded any further, Yasuko fled the teahouse and headed for the marketplace._

_It was that dreaded time of year on her calendar. When the leaves slowly turn from their healthy lush green colour to a crumpled brown corpse. The air was crisp and the days were always the same. Bitter mornings that would redden your nose and brisk afternoons; the nights would still be the coldest of them all, covering all the windows in the house with a thin layer of spindly frost like outstretched feathers stuck to the glass. Autumn - just before the snow._

_She wasn't unnoticed in the streets. Some of the more wealthy citizens of Konoha recognized her from the teahouse as Nakanishi's White Azalea - the precious daughter of Shoutaro and Chou. They bowed and nodded and she did the same back. However, most people did not identify her as anybody particularly special, aside from the fact that she was still wearing the heavy layers of a lavender kimono._

_In the marketplace, there were many sorts of people. Merchants and nomads and con-mans and few consumer chumps. She spied a man being deceived by a sketchy seller in a cloak who was insisting that supernatural misfortunes would fall upon him if he didn't purchase a special watch, which had pictures of the moon and the sun printed on the face, as well. A tiny, plump women who carried around baskets of eggs and loafs of bread to the hefty men who lugged around wooden wagons of goods had a cheerful grin on her face. _

_Yasuko strolled through, feeling like just a spectator._

_Being in the marketplace didn't make her just like everybody else. It didn't even make her _look _like everybody else. In reality, she couldn't participate in the daily life. And moreover, she stuck out like a sore thumb by wearing such an extravagant kimono._

_Still, it was fun to pretend and take a breather from the suffocating silence of the teahouse. In the village, everybody spoke so freely (and at any volume they pleased) so the sounds were exploding in her ears._

_Yasuko stopped at a stand that was selling jewelry and hair accessories. The woman running the shop was delighted that she had been looking and had taken to suggesting that she buy a pair of emerald earrings and an amethyst necklace._

_They were gorgeous and sparkling._

_She bought them both. Along with a few charms, trinkets and braided leather bracelets._

_Then she became aware of a certain craving. She had been craving it ever since she performed at the latest festival; candies. Usually Chou didn't allow her to eat chocolates or candies. She was concerned that if she ate these things, she sink into gluttony and then hwe slim figure would go to waste._

_But it wouldn't be the first secret that Yasuko withheld from her mother. It was a sick pleasure, she knew, but for some reason, there was nothing more exhilarating than succeeding in deceiving her mother. Surely keeping it a secret would make the candy taste much better._

_She was continuing to explore the marketplace, targeting the best place to get my fix when she spotted a stand where they sold candy-coated apples! Chocolate covered apples! Even the velvetty and sweet caramel covered apples!_

_Her mouth watered and she blindly headed for it._

_Perhaps too blindly._

_She collided with somebody else in my chocolaty-feverish state. She rebounded off of this person and very clumsily tumbled to the floor. But just after she felt the impact of the ground, something snatched her hand and hauled her to her feet._

_"Are you okay, lady?"_

_"Ehh..."_

_A blonde boy with the eyes of the purest blue gawked at her. "I'm sorry! I was running and I totally didn't even see you!"_

_This boy looked utterly ridiculous! He was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit and his hair was the most obscene colour of blonde Yasuko had ever seen. He was a spark of vibrant colour in this crowd. And the loudest one among them all, as well._

_She vaguely noticed that the villagers were giving him stares of familiarity, and of the utmost disdain._

_"O-oh! Th-that's really okay! It was mostly my fault!"_

_'Did he even hear me?' He just continued to babble on with an apology. "Are you hurt? Is your kimono dirty? Are you sure?" It was halfway through his incoherent babbling when she noticed that the blonde boy with the eyes of purest blue had yet to let go of her right hand._

_His hand was coarse but the way his fingers were clutching on to hers was gentle. It was the first time she had ever _talked_ to a boy around her age outside of the clan, let alone _touch_. 'I never imagined that it would feel so soothing.'_

_Finally, the blonde boy seemed to have noticed. He yanked his hand away and his face became a deep shade of red. This time when he apologized, it was only an embarrassed mutter, "S-sorry."_

_"I'm fine, thank you. No need to apologize." She regained her composure. 'I let it slip, haven't I?' she thought in a panick. She'd shown her surprise, her desire to touch him again._

_Just when the boy with the eyes of purest blue (who Yasuko had been calling Pure Blue in her mind for quite some time now) was about to surrender and stop apologizing, he gasped in horror when he gazed upon her left hand. "You're bleeding!"_

_"O-oh? I didn't notice..." It was true. In the whole mixup, she didn't even notice that her hand had scraped the rough floor in an attempt in break her fall. The thick streams of blood were now curling around her fingers. _

_'Bleeding? Oh, I must get home!' She desperately wanted to escape the uncomfortable situation but before she could just go home to save what little dignity she still held, Pure Blue dragged her away. Away from the marketplace, away from the candy covered apples and further away from the teahouse and compound than she had ever dared to go._

_He didn't take her to his house (and not the hospital either, thankfully) but to a small spot in the forest where there was a stone bench and a fountain, gushing bubbly water. "Here, we can wash it off here!"_

_The two of them perched on the edge of the fountain while Pure Blue rinsed the blood from the hand beneath the fall of the bubbly water. Then, from his pocket he drew a roll of bandages. He began to wrap up her hand, layer after layer._

_And then it finally occurred to her that normally people wouldn't carry rolls of bandages around with them. Unless, of course, they were a ninja. And then she noticed something that was quite obvious that she had not noticed before, in all the commotion. Pure Blue wore a hitai-ite. A shinobi headband._

_'How could somebody like this be a cold-blooded murderer? Somebody with such a tender touch? Somebody who barely looked and sounded more than a child?' She wanted to recoil from him. Those hands that he was touching her with held knives, knives that drew blood and ended lives. The fear kicked in. The fear was paralyzing. The fear was making her knees quake._

_"Lady?"_

_Yasuko froze._

_"Are you okay?"_

_She had made a mistake. She should have escaped from him and continued to believe that all ninja were brutal murderers. But she let him in. Pure Blue stared at her, directly in the eyes. In him, she couldn't see the lives that he'd taken. She couldn't sense murderous intent. Only an impossible purity that she'd never seen before in anybody. Naiveté. It suddenly became quite clear to her that maybe not all people were more than what they seemed; Pure Blue was simplicity._

_And the next thing she did also felt very simple._

_Yasuko leaned in toward him and thrust her lips upon his. She remained there for a few moments with her hands clasped tightly on the front of his jacket, longing for closeness. No matter how close she got to him, it wasn't enough. Her lips were still brushing against his - still it wasn't enough._

_"Wh-what..." Pure Blue mumbled before sinking into another kiss, seizing me by the shoulders._

_Suddenly, her mother's words echoed through her empty head. 'If there's one thing you want to control in this world, it is your love. Do not give your love away so freely because it's one of the easiest things to regret and you shall never get it back,' she told her once before. It was on the afternoon when Yasuko asked her why she was expected to be a virgin when she was married off._

_She pulled away from Pure Blue. "Oh please! I-I have to go!"_

_"Wait!"_

_It was too risky to remain there any longer. "I have to go home!" She was dashing away only as fast as my kimono and sandals would let her go._

_"When will I see you again?" He shouted after her._

_This made her pause for just a moment. 'He wants to see me.' Her heart was pounding; she clinched my chest and prayed that it would ease. "Meet me here. I-in 1 week! At night time!" Night time was the only window of opportunity Yasuko would ever have of sneaking out._

_So she left. She felt that Pure Blue had ripped something away from her and now had it for himself. A part of her was empty now - but it was left with the warm glow from when he touched it; a fragment of his spirit dwelling in her body now, filling that blank space. However, her blissful state was short-lived. As she was trekking back through the forest, nearly slipping on the overgrown moss covered tree roots trying to navigate her way back to the village, she was halted._

_Somebody was there._

_He stood solid in front of her, carefully measuring her with his obsidian eyes. "I saw everything."_

* * *

><p>Her stomach was in knots as she hopelessly fantasized about the events of last week. Tonight was the night she was supposed to visit beloved Pure Blue at the fountain in the forest and she still couldn't shake a feeling of dread that plagued her.<p>

'The boy with no emotions knows everything,' she thought with a tearful sigh. Yasuko slowly eased herself to lie down on the futon holding her hands over her hard-thumping heart. 'I sensed something bad from him... like hate. Why did he hate me so much? Or why did he hate Pure Blue...? Who could?'

With final thoughts of Pure Blue, she was transported from the most pleasant daydream to the most sweet sleep she'd had in days.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hey! God, it's such a pain switching a story from first person to third. A MASSIVE PAIN.

_~Chapter 2 - The Good Kind~_

The shuriken pierced the tree trunk all in a line — without a sound until they impacted with the damp bark. He dug deep into his pocket and fingered the cool handle of a kunai. It was all about trajectory. For once not about power at all. Just accuracy. He swiftly jumped into the tree beside the one which had the shuriken in it, and whipped his kunai. All in a line, his kunai clashed the shuriken, ripping them from the tree. All but the last one. It just nearly _kissed_ the top of the last one.

He was close. Not that it mattered. This was just perfecting his aim. It was child's play. Sasuke had just finished training to hone his skills using the jutsu Kakashi-sensei taught him, Chidori. He had taught him just before the chuunin exams and even then, he hadn't exactly mastered it. The product of his battle with Gaara, from Sunagakure, was solid proof of that.

It was only an inkling, but it became apparent to him that there was more you could do with Chidori. Sasuke's mind raced whenever he tried to imagine the different combinations - the things he could do with such a jutsu. Infused in weapons? In strings? In the floor itself? 'If my Gogakyuu could travel through strings, there must be a way...'

Endless possibilities. But were they good enough? Were they good enough to even incite a little surprise from _him_? Or fear?

Among Sasuke's many wishes, he wished for once that Itachi, his murderous brother, would fear for his life. He wished that _he_ could be the one to do it. The most sadistic of his desires was to play him like a puppet and make him understand suffering. Only a tiny slice of what he's dished out.

He wanted to remain in the training grounds, his sanctuary, much longer but he became aware that he was feeling hungry and to be able to train effectively, would have to satisfy such a craving. Collecting his weapons that were drenched with globules of his perspiration, he left and marched through the village on his way to the nearest food joint that didn't taste like sweat and lard.

On his way, he received a few flirty stares from a few girls his age, girls he knew from the ninja academy. It was really quite annoying. Sasuke had really believed 'graduating' meant leaving all of that immature 'lovey' hysteria to the juniors. By this time, one would think these girls would know what was important, he thought.

In return, he gave them nothing. Just blank stares, or no acknowledgement at all. _They _weren't the people he wanted to be recognized by.

Sasuke continued to walk but couldn't help but notice that he was getting ever so much closer.

'It'll only be a few blocks now. Before I reach the fence.'

Unconsciously, his pace quickened. He always wanted to reach the fence as quick as possible. 'Maybe she's in her room right now...'

When he arrived at the fence, he leaned against it, just to catch his breath.

The fence in question was just a plain brown fence. Nothing special about it — a regular fence with regular weeds poking up from the bottom with regular holes and cracks. It surrounded the Nakanishi compound. Normally, Sasuke would pay no mind to anything even in relation to Nakanishi, no less their wooden fence. But it was the vivid memory that always invaded his head whenever he saw the fence that would always keep him coming back.

It stood as a constant reminder of the night he had heard something sweet. Sweet — among the bitterness of his monotonous life of being nothing but insignificant. The first time he had felt misery — only, the good kind. The night Sasuke heard the girl with a golden voice.

* * *

><p><em>"Katon! Hosenka no jutsu!"<em>

_He mustered the chakra once more in his chest and spat out several bursts of flames and all were whizzing wildly through the air at Kakashi who was just barely evading them. Jutsu was his specialty — Kakashi was trying to battle close range to seal off Sasuke's jutsu options. He advanced him with a kunai in hand, ready to pounce. Sasuke yanked a kunai from his pouch but before he could make a pre-emptive strike, their blades clanged together._

_Sasuke watched his master up close as their knives ground together and they struggled to overpower eachother. The sweat was forming at his brow, dripping slowly down his face and dribbling off his chin. His teeth were clinched. Still, Sasuke could sense a lack of effort. Far too much — Kakashi was holding back._

_It was getting frustrating. It was going nowhere. Sasuke pulled his kunai away and barely ducked in time before Kakashi's knife slashed his face. As he was crouching, he attempted to spring to his feet and gain balance but his ankle twisted and a sharp pain jolted up his leg._

_"Shit!" He groaned. 'No time for griping!' Kakashi had let down his guard momentarily. He left an opening! Sasuke jammed his uninjured foot deep into Kakashi's stomach and sent him to staggering backward, but only for a brief moment. He rebounded and sent a flying roundhouse to his jaw. The underside of sandal just grazed it. _

_Sasuke's body was becoming fatigued, slowing down. 'This is unacceptable.'_

_However, he could see he wasn't the only one. Kakashi was beginning to get sloppy as well (they had been training for hours)._

_'I can finish him. Finish him with Lion's Barrage!' Sasuke advanced him once more and nearly lost his footing due to the agonizing injury in his ankle, and before he could get into position to kick, Kakashi was behind him._

_"You're slow, Sasuke-kun."_

_Kakashi only had to shove him, and he went tumbling into an enormous tree. His head was now bruised as badly as his ankle and he layed on the gunky forest floor; motionless and useless as a shriveled carcass. He was completely powerless to his pain._

_"Let me see your ankle," Kakashi said._

_"No. Just leave it. It's just a bruise."_

_The man towered over Sasuke, surely reminding himself once again that he was still a thousand miles from his goal. And at that moment, unable to even pick himself up from the mud, it felt untouchable to Sasuke. 'I had been so naive before, to convince myself that I could almost taste it, around when I got my sharingan,' he winced. He'd felt invincible at that time, blinded by a cheap rush of power. He could see now — he was nearly worthless._

_"Sasuke," Kakashi snapped him out of the reverie he was locked in. "You're going to overwork yourself if you don't know when to stop. You're injured. Rest for a few days."_

_"I'll rest for the night. The swelling will go down a-"_

_"You're foolish, Sasuke-kun."_

_His teacher leisurely slipped his hands in his pocket and strolled away from the training grounds. 'I am foolish, aren't I?'_

_Sasuke's ankle was now swollen and painful to put weight on. So, when he was positive that he was alone (his insides squirmed at the thought of anybody witnessing his how pathetic he was), Sasuke dragged his limp body over to a wooden pillar, out of the mucky patch of mud. He was now resting on the lush green grass, not really caring as the moisture seeped uncomfortably into his clothes._

_He wanted to sleep._

_God, how he wanted to sleep._

_Sleep had not come easily in the past few weeks. It was like a temporary insomnia. It started when he began to have the most grotesque nightmares. For about a week straight, Sasuke dreamt about the clan massacre. And it played over and over; every time just as horrifying as the last. _

_The first few times, he was frantic, running back and forth to try and stop the bloodshed just as he had done on that night. Then he started to realize that he was utterly powerless, even to the insubstantial figments of his imagination. Then, all that was left to do was watch and wait for the torment to stop; submissive and defeated._

_Being awake was his only escape. When he was awake, he had some control over his actions, his daily events. Some control over life. Eventually, as he watched Naruto rising with inexplicable power, he began to realize that whether he was in a dream world or in devastating reality, he was helpless. He was powerless._

_That was approximately the point that Sasuke found sleep to be impossible. At first, he'd forced himself to stay awake for long periods of time to escape his nightmares and, instead, crammed in as much training and studying as possible. Then, when his body was _begging _for sleep, it wouldn't come. _

_At this point, he hadn't slept in weeks. It had gotten so bad that__ often times, his vision became fuzzy, sounds became muffled and people and objects appeared to be just shapeless blobs; like gaseous matter._

_Sometimes, it was as if his mind was asleep and dreaming while his body remained in reality. But that wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. He _longed _for sleep._

_Nothing helped. Not eating, not relaxing, not counting any ridiculous sheep. Sleep was yet another thing that felt unreachable._

_He didn't know how long he stayed in the training grounds. All he knew was that it was in the middle of the night. The sky was velvetty black and the stars were just distant white specks. Everybody talked about how beautiful the stars were _—_ poets and philosophers _—_ all of them were obsessed with some hugely soothing 'cloak of stars'. They talked about the shimmering, and how they seemed close enough to reach out and touch._

_But staring up at the sky, Sasuke could not relate to this at all. No matter how he positioned himself, squinted or crossed his eyes, the stars were nothing but gases burning out in space, thousands of light years away. They were things that most knew nothing about, and in fact, if one of them exploded it would be mass destruction. _

_He wondered if humans were so intrigued because they _couldn't _touch them? They were among the things that we couldn't have therefore they were divine? Perhaps stars weren't stunning or romantic at all, just another object of human curiosity and fascination with things that we don't possess — like godliness, like omnipotence._

_Not that it mattered._

_He found nothing stunning about them. They were just lights._

_When all noise died from the direction of the village, Sasuke knew that even the most diligent store owner in Konoha had gone to bed. Now, the crickets were just trilling. On and on._

_'There's never complete silence is there?'_

_He stood up, trying desperately not to put any weight on his left ankle. He managed hobbled all the way back to the village. Nobody was dwelling the street. His guess was that it was about midnight. He waddled down the path on his way to the Uchiha compound._

_The village was quite enjoyable at this time of night. The only thing to light his path were salmon pink lanterns, stringing all around the village. Pink wasn't his favorite colour (not that he had one) but the faint light was really pleasant._

_On his way, he was passed a brown fence that he knew was the perimeter of the Nakanishi compound, and was so tall that not many villagers knew what the compound looked like apart from a few skyscraping trees that peaked above the wooden planks. _

_He was passing by when something startled him. He heard a sudden shriek. Not a human shriek _—_ rather a shriek of an instrument._

_Nonetheless, Sasuke lost his balance and accidentally put pressure on his twisted ankle and toppled on the floor. He hissed painfully. "Where the fu-"_

_Somebody was fiddling with a violin. Quite carelessly. That was why it must have shrieked, he deduced. They played discordant notes that stabbed his ears. Sasuke growled. He could no longer stand up. His ankle was much worse. Instead, he dragged himself by his dirtied palms to lean against the brown fence. _

_"Crap... crap..." he cursed under his breath, weaving bandages over his injury._

_It came so unexpectedly._

_Sasuke was nearly writhing on the floor, heaving air in anguish. He nearly released his pained howl, when something broke the silence instead._

_Something that was barely above a whisper at first. He thought perhaps his ears were playing tricks on him. But then it rose. Rose louder than his heavy breathing _— rose over_ the throbbing. It was unmistakably singing._

_A song with no words. A slow melody that chimed through the emptiness. Her voice was light, celestial; it made him feel lightheaded. Or perhaps that was his blood draining from the wound? _

_It didn't matter. At the moment, he couldn't feel it. The pain was overwhelmed by another swelling sensation. It was strange. It was sadness. Sadness unlike anything he'd felt before and it materialized suddenly within him, where it had not been before._

_Rooted in her song was sheer despair. And as every second passed by and as her voice intensified, Sasuke could feel every pang of misery._

_But it made him smile. It was the good kind, of course._

_The kind that only music can create._

_The song vanished into silence. His still hard-beating heart was drumming in his ears. He had a yearning to climb the fence now, even if his whole goddamn foot was falling dangling by a single sinew, he wanted to climb the fence and meet with this girl with a golden voice._

_However, he looked down at himself. His knees were mud-stained and his pants had grass marks all over them. His shirt was dank and grungy with sweat and his hair, matted with it. Blood percolated from every limb in his body and even from his soil-sullied face._

_How could he show an angel such a sight? It would be shameful; his very presence would very well taint her._

_Furthermore, Sasuke was suddenly overcome by exhaustion. His head drooped to his left shoulder and he yawned. He had only a few moment to gaze up into the sky before slumber overcame him._

_"Isn't that peculiar," he muttered while rubbing his itchy eyes as he curiously stared at the heavens._

_The stars were glowing ever-so brightly that particular night..._

_it was _stunning.

_When he woke up, it was early morning. He had slept like a child all through the night._

* * *

><p>That was the first time Sasuke had heard that girl. Although the fence was right outside the Nakanishi compound, he hadn't a clue just whose house it belonged. Who was this mystery girl?<p>

Not that it mattered.

He wasn't in love with this girl. In his mind, that would make himself just as wretched as the very girls he despised. This girl had simply touched a place that had never accessed before. Her music was healing, and as he soon discovered after that night, singing wasn't the only talent she possessed.

After the first night, sleep came easy but Sasuke was dissatisfied with just that much.

He could have merely let it slip. He could have let it be one night of pure delight and then let the enigma of the golden voice plunge into the world of the forgotten, as did almost everything unrelated to Itachi in his life.

But night after night, Sasuke found himself sinking into sleep in absolute darkness with that song reverberating through the halls of his dreams; dreams that were no longer of torment.

Sleep was a blessing and, as preposterous as it might sound, he strongly believed that that blessing was brought to him through her song.

Soon after that, he began coming at least once a week. She would always be practicing _something _late at night. He discovered that on Mondays and Thursdays she would have singing lessons. Tuesdays, she would have some odd rehearsal time in which she and an older woman recited poetry and monologues. Wednesdays and Fridays, she would play her violin which he found was also quite exquisite.

It would be frustrating, sometimes, to hear her get reprimanded for making a mistake in a performance.

It all sounded flawless to him.

Just as perfect as the first night.

Just one week ago, he met the girl with the golden voice.

Sasuke was in the marketplace when he saw a Nakanishi woman walking through. Most of them usually dressed formally, in kimonos and such. But he recognized this girl. She would sometimes perform a ritual dance at village festivals. It was some century-old tradition to ward off bad spirits and such. Nakanishi Yasuko. The Nakanishi's White Azalea.

Normally, he could care less about an Nakanishi. But just as he was leaving after making a purchase on a basket of vegetables, he saw her smash bodies with Naruto, who was actually sprinting toward Sasuke himself, and fall on the floor. And she spoke.

Shivers pulsed down his back. The voice was just as recognizable as it was unforgettable. It was her. She was definitely the one.

He finally got to study what she looked like for the first time. Nothing as he imagined __—__ simply because he'd had difficulty imagining anything at all. At some point, he was thoroughly convinced she was just a phantom __—__ another projection of his subconscious. Her voice always sounded ghostly anyway.

Sometimes he wondered if perhaps he was a sleepwalker and had wonderfully tangible dreams. Perhaps it was all a hallucination?

But there she was. Totally material. Long brown hair and these smoky gray eyes.

Sasuke had a difficult time admitting to himself that she was indeed as beautiful as her voice.

Out of pure curiosity, he followed her and Naruto when they disappeared into the forest. He came to regret it soon afterward. Sasuke witnessed them kissing. Kissing on the edge of a fountain.

The only thing that was coming to his mind was how that buffoon was defiling her. _Defiling her_. Touching such a person in a way their unravished body was never supposed to be touched. Naruto, that idiot, was nothing more than a blemish on her virtue. He was corrupting her.

Then he noticed she was coming in his direction. He didn't hide. Sasuke stood rigid, obstructing her path. She came close enough that he could hear her huffs of breath and could gaze upon her face; alabaster, immaculate.

The first words he wanted to have spoken to her, after deliberating this encounter many times in his head, should have been, "Sing to me."

Instead, he chose the path of threat. "I saw everything." Why had he done that?

He felt that her presence was unsettling. Maybe it was just because she reminded him of those nights. And maybe he felt a bit ashamed for succumbing to such ridiculous urges, urges to hear her lullaby, as if he were a love-struck sap.

From inside the teahouse that was directly next to him, he heard her playing the violin. The cheerful song that reminded him much of springtime - disgusting, rainy springtime.

Sasuke sauntered up to the window and pretended to admire his surroundings. When she finished, he clapped listlessly and glanced through the window. Yasuko was gaping at him.

An heiress was not to be so transparent. In Yasuko, however, Sasuke could see everything that she was feeling. Surprise and immediate terror. It was near hilarious, how scared she was of him. Still, he gave her nothing. Not even a smirk. Not even a twitch. Nothing to acknowledge her existence. Not yet.

'Perhaps I could make something interesting out of this situation.'

'After all, she is a _fascinating _girl.'

Just as he was leaving the sight of the teahouse, deciding to cease his torture for now, he ran into Naruto. 'Crap.'

"Sasuke! It's the day," Naruto grabbed both of his shoulders and throttled him. "It's the day! It's tonight! It's tonight!"

"Will you shut up," Sasuke snapped and jerked away from him. "Don't you think I know that? You haven't stopped talking about it all week."

Naruto made a face but it didn't remain for very long. He was much too anxious. "I can't help it. I don't know what to do! I don't even know the girl's name!"

Sasuke fought back the impulse to strangle him. 'How _dare _he violate such a girl of such status and such breathtaking talent without even learning her name?' His hands were itching to fasten around Naruto's neck for a few lethal minutes. "It's Yasuko."

"Yasuko? How in the world do you know?"

He blinked. "It wouldn't mean a thing to you anyhow."

Without prying any further, Naruto continued his overwrought ranting. He was surely distressed. Naruto was doing things that he'd never seen the undauntless Naruto do. Yanking at his golden hair, murmuring discouraging things to himself and he seemed to be perpetually fidgetting.

"What if she doesn't even remember? A girl like that probably has lots of guys to spend her nights with!"

"In that case, you'll put an end to this."

Naruto groaned. "She won't remember, will she?"

"I really don't care," he remarked. "But she probably won't forget. A girl like Yasuko doesn't exactly get out much."

He continued to look at Sasuke quizzically (and even a little suspiciously). "Why do you know so much about her? Don't tell me you're after her for yourself!"

"Don't be stupid. I could care less about you and you're silly little girlfriend."

Calling Yasuko Naruto's girlfriend left a bitter taste in his mouth. 'I don't like her. I'm not infatuated. He just doesn't deserve her. Not Naruto. Just not Naruto,' he sucked in sweet oxygen through gritted teeth when he began to lose control of his breath in his sudden rage.

"Don't be jealous just because you don't have somebody like her," said Naruto with a cocky grin. "And we've already had our first kiss! All the awkward parts are gone already! Now all that's left is-"

Sasuke snarled and rolled his eyes. "Spare me the details."

The everlastingly overzealous Naruto just jabbered on, giving some lengthy speech about 'true love' or something nonsensical like that. Sasuke was beginning to get irritated listening to this asinine chatter so he gave him a few short words of parting and left.

The only sentence he deducted from what he was saying was, "Tonight at 10... fountain in the forest."

'Hmm. So the idiot _does_ say something useful every now and then...'


End file.
